Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced Friday that he and his wife are separating. Which leads me to wonder, who will get custody of their last name?
When Antonio Villar married Corina Raigosa in 1987, the couple fused their names together, resulting in the surname Villaraigosa. [Link]
Benjamin Zimmer argues in Slate that, despite a recent spate of articles, it is not yet a trend for brides and grooms to "mesh" their surnames upon marrying. At the same time he cites some early examples, and notes that parents have been meshing with their kids' names for years.
Couples who tried to do this sometimes ran afoul of antiquated statutes regulating the naming of children and had to plead their cases in court. In Hawaii in 1979, Alena Jech and Adolf Befurt successfully fought to give their son the surname Jebef. A few years later in Florida, Dean Skylar and Christine Ledbetter won the right to name their son Sydney Skybetter. (In 1987, New Jersey pre-empted yet another court challenge by revising its regulations when a Greenberg and a McBride wanted to name their child Greenbride.) [Link]
From the Chicago (Ill.) Tribune:
A MARRIAGE OF TWO NAMES
Some couples combine surnames to reflect a more equal partnership
By Dawn Klingensmith
Special to the Tribune
Published July 6, 2005
Like brides and grooms everywhere, Amanda and Bryan Kolburn combined their belongings when they wed in 2002. They consolidated their furnishings under one roof. They put their money in a shared account. They combined their collections of books and CDs.
But the Columbia, Mo., couple went a step further. When they tied the knot, they also combined their surnames. And they didn't just hitch them together with a hyphen. They fused letters from their given names -- Kowal and Burns -- to form their marital surname, Kolburn.
[snip]
[Read the whole story]
